Over a thousand assorted pieces of plastic recovered

The tons on plastic we’re dumping in the oceans is finding a new home—the stomachs of our beautiful marine animals. Yet another reminder of this fact washed ashore in Eastern Indonesia this week. A large lump of waste, including drinking cups and flip-flops, was found in the stomach of a whale that died off the coast near Kapota Island.

The 9.5-metre sperm whale before was found by rescuers from the Wakatobi National Park. The whale had swallowed 5.9 kilograms of plastic waste containing 115 plastic cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, 2 flip-flops, a nylon sack and more than 1,000 other assorted pieces of plastic, park chief Heri Santoso told the Associated Press.

Due to the whale’s state of decay, it was not possible to determine if the plastic was the cause of death. But this is only the latest. In June, a pilot whale in Thailand died after swallowing 80 plastic bags.

Five Asian nations—China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand—account for 60% of the plastic waste in the oceans, according to a report by environmental campaigner Ocean Conservancy and the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment.

Indonesia is second to China when it comes to putting away plastic waste in the oceans, according to a study published in the journal Science in January. Of the 3.2 million mismanaged waste it produces every year, 1.29 million ends up in the ocean.

A report released earlier this year stated that the amount of plastic in the ocean is set to triple if we do not put an end to littering our water bodies.

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